All the Stars in the Heavens Read Online Free PDF

unknown when she arrived, but the terror she felt as she departed Saint Elizabeth’s was worse.
    Alda carried the satchel in one hand and a train ticket in the other. As she pushed through the door of Saint Elizabeth’s, she turned to take in the foyer one last time. The nuns had filled the gold vase with the flowers Alda had cut that morning; the red petals looked like flames.
    The sweet scent of the roses was the last thing she remembered as she walked out of the convent and into her new life.

    Gladys Belzer stood before the stately colonial-style home she shared with her daughters and shielded her eyes from the sun.
    Perched high on a cliff in Bel Air, this was the grandeur she had imagined for her family, an imposing white brick mansion that honored her ancestral roots in the south and her family’s rising prominence in the film industry.
    Sunset House was the perfect calling card for Mrs. Belzer, one of the most popular interior decorators in Beverly Hills. Gladys had graduated from running a respectable boardinghouse on Green Street to decorating the homes of some of the biggest stars in the movies. She built the business on referrals, some through her popular daughters. Gladys was known for her excellent taste, instinctive use of color, and respect for history and architecture, all of which were wrapped up in an elegant European sensibility that proved to be in hot demand.
    Gladys believed that the exterior of the home was the prelude to the decoration within, so the driveway, lawns, gardens, and even the mailbox outside must be as stunning as the rooms inside.
    A set of white brick stairs, with banisters made of frilly white wrought iron, crisscrossed the steep hill like icing on a wedding cake. The stairs weren’t used much, but from Sunset Boulevard, they added architectural interest and a fairy-tale ascent to the castle.
    A movie star’s home required a grand entrance in order for her to make one.
    The entry portico, an imposing two stories high, was anchored by four majestic columns that could be seen the length of Sunset Boulevard. The wide circular drive was paved in brick and could accommodate the longest Duesenbergs and Packards Detroit had made.
    Grand old magnolia trees with white flowers nestled in waxy green leaves were staggered along the property line. Clusters of vivid pink blossoms in the branches of silk-floss trees framed the sides of the house. The hill tumbled down to the street in splashes of color, purple bougainvillea and yellow jasmine twisting through cascades of green ivy like party streamers.
    A house painter stood by dipping a brush into a metal sleeve of white paint, leaving a bold stripe on one of the columns.
    â€œHow’s this one, Mrs. B?”
    â€œIt’s still too antiseptic. Hospital white. Can you bring it down with a touch of gray?”
    â€œYes ma’am.”
    Gladys Belzer, at forty-five, had recently separated from her second husband, George Belzer, nicknamed Mutt (and evidently thrown out because he had behaved as one). Instead of wallowing in the failure of the marriage, she let the disappointment fuel her ambition to build her business to new heights to take better care of her family. The more personal challenges Gladys faced, the better the results in her career. It had always been the case.
    Gladys worried about her children. The failure of her second marriage was particularly painful. Her husband had given her Georgiana, her fourth daughter, the baby, and he had been an excellent accountant, getting the finances of her business in order. She credited him with encouraging her to buy property as an investment.
    But he had been unfaithful, and for Gladys, this was untenable. She worried that she had set a terrible example for her children in this regard, which was one of the reasons she cleaved so closely to the teachings of her adopted Catholic Church. She felt that the church, with its empirical authority and dogma, might make up for the